Pharrell Williams and Adidas make new clothing from marine debris

Rhoda Miel

Sorry if this item puts an earworm in your head, but here goes: Pharrell Williams, whose song “Happy” has been at the top of the U.S. pop music charts for the past nine weeks, is getting involved in recycling plastic from marine waste.

Williams and sportswear giant Adidas Group announced March 27 that Williams would design a clothing line, called Originals, for Adidas, which will use Bionic Yarn. That yarn uses 40 percent plastic scrap collected from oceans.

Williams has been an investor and creative director for Return Textiles LLC of New York, which manufactures Bionic Yarn, since 2009.

Return Textiles originally launched to produce high tech fabrics for outdoor gear, then developed Bionic Yarn to use recycled plastics.

Don Loepp – Loepp was named Plastics News' editor in April 2011. After earning a journalism degree from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University in 1983, he worked as a reporter for eight years for the Milwaukee Journal and for the Daily Press and Times-Herald daily newspapers in Newport News, Va., before relocating to his native northeastern Ohio to join Crain. He joined Plastics News in 1991 as a reporter, was promoted to news editor in mid-1993, and became managing editor two years later.
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